Siralim is the satanic Pokemon experience that your parents warned you about. You take control of a wizard, select one of the five magic schools to specialize in, and summon an ever-expanding team of creatures to traverse a rogue-like RPG full of retro pleasures, but also rife with rage-worthy pitfalls. Your team caps out at 6 creatures, and you lower the health of enemies to capture their cores and resummon your own creature in the comfort of your castle. Despite the obvious allusion that almost everyone will draw to Pokemon, Siralim truly is a game entirely of its own. Will it work its magic on you? Or is it completely unholy? Let’s find out as we take a deeper look at Siralim.
The controls are extremely dialed back, WASD to navigate the world and menus, E to confirm, Q to cancel. This can lead to some wonky moments when trying to sift through multiple screens to get the right piece of equipment onto the right monster, but overall it works well enough. This extremely simple control scheme allows the entire game to be played with the left hand, which is great because my right hand deserves a break. You are able to construct your own equipment to power up your monsters in battle, as well as building construction projects. These construction projects consume the same resources used to summon monsters, however they will let you travel to new realms and meet more powerful creatures to tame as your own.
Finding the correct synergy between hundreds of different creatures is hard, but necessary. Once you reach the 5th level of this infinite dungeon you’re travelling into, enemies will begin to outlevel you in a big way. Creatures need to maximize the usage of their abilities if you hope to see it through. There is an option for permadeath for the extreme masochists out there, or for the maso-curious there is an option to reincarnate a dead creature with a fraction of its former experience. I find this option extremely intrigued by this option, and for most games I end up leaving it on. Dungeons contain plenty of buffs and loot, but you also might find yourself trapped in an event fight before you’re ready. Hence why I usually leave “real” permadeath off.
Siralim is a game with a lot to love, but it also has its fair share of troubles. The sound is troubling, and replayability is hurt by the lack of differences between the magic schools. It is always nice to see how a new combination of creatures will fare in battle, but wizards should get a unique spell or something, not just a power-up to spells from their chosen school. Still, for the low price of $10, lovers of dungeon-crawlers are sure to get their money’s worth. Just restrain yourself from picking the permadeath option, and enjoy collecting them all. Siralim is a quality game, but in my opinion it needs a spot more polish to be truly great. Big thanks to Thylacine Studios for allowing IndieGameBundles to but this game through its paces. We hope to see more extremely soon!
Gameplay:
- Controls- 7/10
- Fun Factor- 7/10
- Difficulty- 10/10
- Replayability- 6/10
- Innovation- 8/10
Aesthetic:
- Graphics- 8/10
- Music- 4/10
- Sound FX- 5/10
- Story/Lore- 7/10
- Level Design- 6/10
Final Score: 68/100 for innovation, fun factor, and graphics.
Summary: A team-based RPG about collecting and summoning the ultimate team of monsters.
Verdict: If you have an eye for RPGs or monster-taming, you’ve found your match.
Siralim was released on Steam Apr 24th 2015.
If you enjoyed the review, you can follow me on Twitter, or check out something less wordy via Steam Curator
You can also join my gaming adventures via Lets Play. Hope to see you there!
